Asphyxia
by Bloody Rot
Summary: Connor goes home with Angel after "Home". See Connor cope. Sequel to Mocking Bird.
1. Breathe

**A/N:** First of all, I'm sorry about the lack of updates on my by far more popular fic, _Little Devil, Little Angel_. I've just been going through some stuff and...well, I'm having difficulty seeing humor. Depression. Zoloft. Yada yada yada. Also, real life has been kicking my ass through school and homework and work, so yay for my life. Or no yay. Either way.

And about this, it's set after my last fic, _Mocking Bird_. It seemed a few people liked it and I liked it myself, and I really just wanted to write something longer and Connor-centric, because well...depression. I can really relate to the kid right now and using him will be a nice release. I haven't seen any of Season 5. I know that's deplorable, but its true. None of it. So, uh, if stuff just sucks, I'm sorry.

**Asphyxia**

**Chapter One**

* * *

_One breath, two breaths. One breath, two breaths._

Connor had blue eyes and wet shoes. There were puddles in the streets and he hadn't bothered to sidestep. He never did. Why bother? In his experience, it was always better to just step right in and get used to the cold.

"It's going to be alright now, son. We can start over."

His dad always called him 'son' when the time called for comfort. Connor knew, though, that it was much more of a comfort for Angel than for himself. He could hear it in the vampire's tone – the desperate need for reassurance that this boy- this wretch of a kid in front of him, with the mussed up hair and the torn shirts, was his son. His son.

_I'm his son_, Connor reminded himself. _I am what I am because this is what Angel is._

The ground was much more interesting than the bustle of people in the immaculate building of Wolfram and Hart. Connor watched his wet shoeprints dry into the floor, leaving no trace on the clean tile.

"Angel!"

Connor heard Fred chirp. He heard Wesley fidget briefly, shuffling his feet, before settling into the determined, angry stance that the Englishman always seemed to possess. Heard Gunn straighten just a bit more, cross his arms. Heard Lorne hum something sweet-like, like the crème between the two chocolate cookies of an Oreo. Connor liked Oreos.

He listened to the adults talk. They weren't really adults...they weren't much older than him; but he always thought of them as adults... probably because they always talked down to him.

_Connor, do this. Connor, don't do that. Connor, you screwed up. How many times do I have to tell you, Connor...?_

"Stop it," he murmured to himself. "Stop telling me what to do."

The cool pressure on his shoulder brought him back to the room and he kept his eyes trained on the floor. The floor was so interesting. Not a speck of dirt, despite all the shoes. Connor's shoes were always dirty, so he knew that shoes tracked in dirt and dirt made the floor dirty, but this floor...

"What did Junior do this time?"

He knew that it was his fault. It was always his fault and even if it wasn't, they always blamed him. It was his fault, his fault. Even if no one died this time.

"He didn't do anything."

Connor felt his father turn his head to look at the dead woman for affirmation and he must have received it, because the tense hand relaxed on his shoulder and the boy blinked and shuffled a bit farther away.

The adults said more things. Things about Wolfram and Hart and change and evil and good and the mission. Things about champions.

Connor wasn't a champion. He didn't really want to be. He wanted to crawl into a bed and close his eyes and go to sleep. He wanted to stop feeling so numb, wanted the fog in his head to clear up. Most of all, he wanted the illusion of the weight to go away. He could still feel it- the dynamite around his waist. Still hear them sob.

"Connor?"

The hand pulled him closer.

"Connor, are you ready to go home?"

_No, no, no..._

He didn't feel his head nod, but he knew it was doing it. The floor was moving, up and down, and there still wasn't any dirt. Not a trace, not a speck.

No dirt, no dirt...but something smelled like smoke.

_One breath, two breaths. One breath, two breaths._

The match. He'd struck the match. He was going to blow them all to pieces.

"You okay, Pal?"

_One breath, two breaths. Three breaths. Four breaths._

_Five breaths._

"Connor? Con? Son?"

"He's hyperventilating."

All bits and pieces, blood and gore. He'd killed so many and he would kill many more.

If he could have, Connor would have chuckled. Sick nursery rhymes for a sick kid. Barely a year old in this world, and everything was already gone.

"C'mon, kiddo, breathe. Talk to me. Please, Connor."

So many dead and gone, so much fire singeing the skin of humanity.

Connor choked, gasped for breath in his father's arms and the rest of them stared in wonder, the casual onlookers of tragedy's memoir in the making.

"We'll go home, okay?" Angel murmured into his son's hair. "You just need some sleep is all. Some food, some sleep. You'll feel better in the morning."

_One breath, two breaths. One breath, two breaths._

The morning, when the sun would slowly rise into the sky and stain the world in pinks and oranges before fading into blue. Connor detested the dawn, the lie of the cheerful dirt, raising his hopes only to shut him down.

Blue followed; mundane, empty blue.

Then dusk.

Then dark.

"We'll go home," his dad murmured again. "We'll go home."

* * *

**TBC...**

****

**Feel free to review.**


	2. Shoes

**

* * *

A/N:** Connor's seventeen. I wasn't a fan of how he went from sixteen to eighteen over a summer, so, uh...I'm rewinding that shit because I'm awesome. I didn't really want to update this soon, but I won't really have the time for a while so I might as well do it now. Thanks for all the reviews, kids. You're most encouraging. 

**Asphyxia**

**Chapter Two**

* * *

Huge and barren, the Hyperion served as nothing but a bitter reminder to everything that had happened over the past months. Connor noted the messy disarray of papers and cloths and plates and glasses and kitchen utensils and thought about the aftermath of love – an abandoned battleground, littered with the bloody appendages of those who fell head over heels; and the detached digits of those who so desperately wanted out.

"We'll get it cleaned up. It won't be like this forever."

His dad's voice was a faraway whisper, but the cold hand was on his shoulder again and Connor shuddered, still unused to the close proximity of this...this thing.

"Whatever," was all he could say. It was such a simple word, which could solve the most complex situations; could so completely articulate his utter apathy or his inability and unwillingness to talk.

"Do you want something to eat?"

Connor felt his head shake, watched the room move left and right. His stomach clenched and turned at the thought of food – the thought of a half-masticated sandwich or a burnt waffle slivering down his throat was enough to almost send him reeling and puking into the closest flowerpot. Almost.

"Do you...do you want to go get cleaned up and ready for bed? Your bedroom's still in tact... and you left your Gameboy. Crafty little contraption, isn't it?"

Connor remembered his Gameboy. Remembered playing it for hours upon hours during the boring summer days while Fred made him sandwiches and Gunn repeatedly organized the weapons cabinet. It was so much fun...so different from anything he'd ever owned before. So entertaining for something so small and harmless.

"Connor? Please... talk to me?"

He felt himself being pulled back against his inhuman father's cold chest. His dad drank blood for sustenance. Blood was in people, in animals; in cats and dogs and horses and pigs and cows. In birds. Blood sustained life. His dad took life. That's why God abhorred Connor's parentage, Connor's roots. . . Connor's means of existence.

That's what Father had said.

He barely sensed when Angel took a hold of his hand; didn't react to the gentle grip, and numbly followed the vampire up the stairs.

_Connor, thank God you're alive._

His dad had said that once. In a fleeting moment, he'd thanked God that his son was alive and he'd hugged Connor, quick and tight for the entirety of that moment. Paused and sighed into his hair.

Connor found himself being pushed down onto the little bed, found himself encompassed by the four blue walls of the tiny room where he had spent a guiltless summer relishing in his satisfying act of revenge.

He couldn't make himself feel sorry then. He still couldn't.

"Dad?" he asked quietly, looking at his father's bowed head as his wet, filthy shoes were tenderly extracted from his feet.

Connor shifted his eyes to focus on the chipped bedside table as Angel's head shot up a bit too quickly.

"Connor?"

But it was too late. Dad was always too late when it came to Connor and too quick to push him away, whether it be intentional or not.

Angel didn't press this time, and went back to undoing the laces on the first shoe's fellow.

"I love you, Connor."

It always came back to that. Always came back to how Dad loved him no matter what he did, no matter how much that love was returned with complete and utter loathing. But Dad never confirmed it in his actions, never tried, always pushed him out the door into the harsh, cruel world, filled with hate and pain.

"I'd never lie about that, son. You have to believe me when I say I love you."

Connor felt a cold fingertip caress his cheek and leaned into the touch, closed his eyes, and let the feeling linger. It never lingered long, always ended a few seconds too early; always ended with him feeling emptier than before.

"Look at me."

Connor trained his eyes on the floor, focusing on the dirt gathered along the edge of the wall.

"Connor, please."

And the finger returned, tilted his chin gently to the side and he found himself staring into Angel's pleading eyes.

"You do know I love you, right?"

The boy closed his lids, and behind them, found the months rewinding. Felt the excitement and the rush of new crushes and felt the heartache of how they crushed him; the slow, steady buildup of rage, which furiously coursed through his veins; the fast-paced, overwhelming confusion that opened up and swallowed him whole.

"Connor?"

The harsh ache of his cheeks, the aftermath of Dad's beating, the bruises and the cuts and the wash of abandonment, the waves of emptiness, the solace of nothing.

"I don't," Connor whispered. "I don't."

And he bit down hard on his lip and strangled the sob, but let his tears go. He flinched and jerked away when his dad tried to touch him this time, feeling no tolerance for the feigned paternal affection he'd been receiving for the past few hours.

"Shh, Con..."

"Don't...don't..."

And when the cold hand rested on his knee, he could smell the smoke in the air and hear the quiet. The screams were gone and the air was thick with the scent of blood and death and the flesh was scorched so completely, so blackened, and they were home now. Snug and tight and cozy in their beds.

It was these thoughts, these abstract reflections, which allowed Angel to lay his son out on the mattress. Connor curled instantly into the fetal position, shivered, ducked his face into the pillow and cried. He shuddered under the warm weight of the blanket, quick thoughts flashing through his head, informing him that he was seventeen years old and this was his first time being tucked in.

"You'll feel better in the morning, Con. Just get some sleep."

He'd feel better in the morning, when the sun came up and splashed the sky in unreal hues. When it rose above the hills and burned Dad to ash and left him alone, shivering underneath this blanket, in this hotel filthy with dirt and vermin and the post-chaos cleanup of Jasmine's love.

In the morning, he'd feel the tingling after the numbness.

* * *

**TBC...**


	3. This

**A/N:** Sorry it took so long. My Internet hasn't been working and I'm in a computer lab now so life just sucks. Enjoy.

****

**Asphyxia**

**Chapter Three**

* * *

Morning came to Los Angeles bearing an overcast sky and spring showers. Dazed blue eyes stared at the ceiling as sharp ears listened to the plentiful drops against the window pane. The sheets were rumpled and tangled around Connor's feet but he didn't move to smooth them out, didn't feel the need to bother. This is what he was.

_That's what you are._

His dad's hideous visage; the wrinkles, the fangs. The demon inside the corpse. That's what he was. That was his true father's face.

"This is what I am," he quietly informed the ceiling.

He didn't quite know what this was, just knew that he was this. Just as Dad was a thing, Connor was..._this_. That's all he really needed to know.

He felt his skin prickle for a moment, and knew instantly that Angel was hovering at the threshold of his bedroom. Silent and stealthy with super hearing and super eyesight and super speed. This is what he was. At a hefty price.

"Hey, pal."

Currency had taken some time to get used to. Connor had known how to kill and Connor had known how to take, but Connor had never learned how to pay until he arrived at this place - this large, overcrowded city that still managed to be so...desolate. It had taken far more time to get used to the realization that currency in this world was not only paper money and copper coins, but pain. Connor paid a lot in pain.

"Dad," he returned softly, knowing that it would appease the vampire if only for a moment. As the bastard son of two vampires, Connor had learned early on that it was best to appease those in charge. Father had been in charge...and Connor had been quick to understand that he had to atone for his roots, that he must learn Father's teachings and the teachings of God, who had given him to Father.

_God gave me to you._

Sometimes, in Quortoth, Connor had resented God. In the long nights with his muscles tensed beneath his blanket, nursing his fresh hunting wounds, Connor had closed his eyes and cursed God. His hand wrapped around his hunting knife, ready for an attack, would then slip and skid along the blade because good boys loved and obeyed God, and Connor had so desperately wanted to be Father's good boy.

"How are you feeling?"

Connor tensed as Angel approached the bed, but fought the urge to roll away. Fear was for the weak, and the weak couldn't fight. The weak couldn't kill. The weak couldn't _survive_. However, Father had always impressed upon his adopted son that sometimes, bravery came at the price of foolhardiness and foolhardiness came at the price of death. Connor knew, had always known deep down, that he could never survive Angel.

And that's why he didn't budge when his dad sat next to him, didn't flinch when the cold fingers ran through his long hair. He knew he couldn't _survive_.

"Connor?"

"I'm fine,"the boy mumbled, shutting his blue eyes for half a second before returning his gaze to the white ceiling. He shuddered when the thumb stroked his cheek, clenched his fists when his eyes caught sight of Angel's knuckles. Those hands, pale and white, were like blades glinting in the moonlight. He could smell it, the blood; the red, rich blood growing old and stale by the years and decades and centuries. Centuries-old blood still stained those hands. Father's family...their blood, caught beneath those immaculate fingernails.

"Do you feel any better?"

And Connor wondered, not for the first time, if he would have delighted in their screams. Their pleading and their tears - would he smile? Wicked boy, Father called him. Connor was a wicked boy when he was disobedient, the son of Angelus, and the devil's child.

"Yeah, it's better."

Wicked boys were spillers of human blood, the lacerations upon the wrists of the innocent. Wicked boys weren't fed and clothed and loved and hugged.

Most of all, wicked boys weren't kissed. They didn't feel those dead lips pressed upon their foreheads, or the warmth behind the cold; the lies encompassed in their fathers' love and the truth behind it.

_You're just like your dad._

And they never meant Holtz, the righteous man. Connor was not a noble, honorable man who sought justice for crimes committed upon his good-hearted family. No, Connor was dead inside, an evil core hidden underneath a soulful mantle...and he never matured. Never grew up.

He could snap at any moment.

"I'm so glad you're alive, Connor."

Connor shook his head. Lies. All lies. _Liar liar pants on fire_, Fred had said. That's what every kid should say at least once and Connor was a kid, so he should say it. No sense on missing out on what you could still enjoy, after all.

"You're not."

"I _am_, Connor. I'm so glad you're alive."

_But I'm not,_ Connor thought. _I'm not alive. Stop trying to tell me I'm alive. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not. I don't _**want**_ to be alive._

Another kiss upon the wicked boy's forehead; cold, dead lips full of lies and screams and blood.

"I love you. I do. I wish I knew what to say to make you believe that."

If Dad loved him, that meant he was a wicked boy. A wicked, wicked boy. The devil's child. Son of Angelus. But that's not what he was.

As Dad was a thing, Connor was _this_.

Connor was a pitiful example of failed evil. Couldn't get the match struck. Couldn't take them all down with him. Couldn't smell the blood anymore, the scorched, blackened flesh wafting through the air. Couldn't even pride himself in doing something right, because the sun came up over the hills and Dad was alive and they were all still snug and tight and cozy in their beds.

And once the pins and needles rang clear, so did Connor's mind.

Connor wasn't Dad's wicked boy, and he wasn't Father's good boy.

Connor wasn't even a boy.

"You're my baby, Connor. My son, my blood...you could take everything I love and throw it away and I'd never stop loving you."

Connor was a disease.

* * *

_This_ stumbled down the stairs, foot in front of foot, swaying side to side, clumsy and lacking the necessary grace. His bloodshot eyes drifted upwards, to the balcony where he had attempted to attack his father, only to be thwarted by an anti-demon violence ward.

Connor wasn't human.

_Normal teenagers check for pimples..._

But his teeth were blunt! They were _blunt_ and _human_ and _not _sharp and _not_ jagged and _not_ murderous. He couldn't rip anyone apart with these teeth and wouldn't want to.

"Connor?"

"Hi, Dad," Connor greeted as calmly as his voice would allow, gripping the railing with one hand and planting himself firmly on the last step of the staircase.

"You're out of bed." Dad seemed pleased and he even gave his son a rewarding smile. "Are you feeling better?"

"Much."

Connor did feel much better, and the awful taste in his mouth had even gone away. He didn't know why Dad kept alcohol in his closet, because to his knowledge, Dad wasn't much of a drinker. But he remembered the black, silk button-down that felt so good over his back; the handsome garment that smelled distinctly of his biological father, and he'd felt guilty.

He'd felt guilty to take comfort in his father's scent.

"You really like that shirt, don't you?" his father said now and Connor nodded, afraid that he wouldn't be able to control the slur that was bound to lace his words together. The whiskey had been at the top of the closet, above the shirts, in a glass bottle with angry edges that warned him away.

_Don't tell me what to do._

"I'm glad you're feeling better, Connor," Angel smiled, taking a step forward. Then he froze and Connor watched as Dad sniffed the air, eyes darting around frantically for another source of the scent.

Connor knew, had known, always would know that he was _this_.

Small and naive, a little boy dressed in Daddy's big clothes; drunkenly stumbling down these stairs, weighing himself heavily on the creaks and pleading for the wood to give way.

"Whatsamatter, Daddy?" he asked, blinking at Dad's shocked face. He didn't understand what the problem was. He was out of bed and the sun was up and it was the morning after. This is the way Dad had wanted it.

"Connor...you're drunk."

"Maybe," Connor replied thoughtfully, and he took another step and stumbled into his father's quick arms. "I'm up, though. That's good, right?"

"Connor-"

"This is what you wanted, Dad," he laughed. "It's morning and I feel better. I felt better in the morning."

"Not like this."

"It's yours. Does it make you feel better? It makes me feel better. It makes it go away. Makes it all go away," he rambled, ducking his face into Dad's cold neck and breathing in that scent. "My baby blanket smelled like this, didn't it? Smelled like you. I used to smell like you until you let me get away."

"Connor, I didn't-"

"Try hard enough. You didn't try hard enough, I know. And you're sorry. And you love me." The laugh was bitter and sharp now, and Connor thought about Dad and Dad's eyes and Dad's fists and how Dad spoke with that soft voice and how Dad tried.

"Connor, drinking is not-"

"The answer. What's the question?"Connor pulled away and fell to Dad's feet, rested his head against the vampire's thigh. "There are so many questions, Dad, that I always wanted to ask you. I don't remember any of them now."

"Not one?" Angel asked softly, lowering himself to his son's side.

"You can't love me because I hate you." Connor giggled and it sounded manic and he let his legs slip under him, falling harshly into Dad's lap. "I hate you so much, Dad."

"That wasn't a question."

Connor's mind reeled at that. If I hate you isn't a question then what is? I hate you I hate you. It's a question, he wanted to tell his Dad. It is.

"You have the question," he told Angel. "I hate you. Now what's your answer?"

"I love you?"

Connor's heart dropped and his stomach burned, because that was the question and not the answer and how can you have the answer when it was always just question after question left unanswered and unconfirmed. He knew he was _this_. He knew Dad was a thing. What he didn't know was a how a thing spawned _this_.

"You don't, Dad," his voice crackled with the accusation. "You don't love me. You can't love something that you contracted. You can't love something that spreads and destroys."

You can't love_ this_.

"You don't-"

"You're sick with me, that's all. You say it's love, but it's the sickness. Is that what love is , Dad?" He didn't resist when Angel enveloped him in his arms. He was a little boy, dressed in Daddy's clothes, drunk on Daddy's whiskey. "What is love, Dad? Tell me what it is."

It was the first time in over a year that Angel rocked his son, back and forth, back and forth, until the boy passed out. Connor let unconsciousness take him down to darkness, his blue eyes shutting against his father's shoulder, as his overworked mind shutdown for the day and his blunt human teeth pinched the sides of his mouth.

Gentle sleep for a violent boy who couldn't decide whether he was wicked or good, just knew he was this: a steady illness, manufactured for decay and ruin.

Connor was an insatiable child, with pretty blue eyes and dirty feet and questions that couldn't be answered.

* * *

**TBC...**

_(Reviewing is good for the soul)_


	4. Conceived

A/N: Just a quick peek at Angel's perspective.

  
Asphyxia  
Chapter Four

* * *

"You drank it all," Angel murmured, gazing with awestruck eyes at the drained whiskey bottle resting on the floor against his dresser. "There was so much of it left and you drank it all." Sharp brown eyes flashed to the form of his sleeping son. His son, The Destroyer. The Miracle Child. "You really do take after your old dad, don't you, son?" he whispered, taking soft steps toward his bed. "You'd never want to admit it, but you're just like me."

His son. His beautiful, bright-eyed son who stared up at him, and giggled and waggled his chubby, little fingers from that basinet. His baby. His Connor.

"My boy," the vampire said in that quiet voice, thinking of his queen and how she had writhed beneath him, succumbing to ecstasy not once, but thrice. "_My darling boy_." How cold he had been inside, how warm he had wanted to be...the night that this boy was conceived. "My miracle."

He watched the boy shift, watched the delicate face snuggle into the pillow. His son.

Gently, he lowered his hulking form down onto the bed, careful not to disturb the mattress too much. Connor's rest was well-deserved and well-needed and it was nice to see his kid sleep.

His kid. He had always liked the sound of that. He'd imagined what Connor would become. At five, at fifteen.

_Yeah, my kid got into the gifted class. _

_That's right. My kid. The captain of the hockey team._

"The Destroyer." Said under his breath, it didn't sound so bad. That's what his kid was at seventeen. His kid was the Destroyer.

"What's wrong with you, kiddo?" he asked the ceiling, resting his gelled head on a pillow. "What am I going to do with you?"

He waited for an answer, because that's what he knew how to do. Angel knew how to wait for things, and wait...and wait. He'd waited about a dozen lifetimes for love, and even more for a son. His inconceivable child.

He knew he'd have these problems eventually. Every parent had these problems. Teenagers were known for being unruly and hostile, quiet and moody, dark-gazed and cynical. They were known for making their hard-working parents' lives a living hell. It's what they were _known_ for.

But you never knew what they were thinking and that's why it was okay for Connor to be his inconceivable child, his sad-eyed boy. Because Connor was a teenager now.

And teenagers were inconceivable in themselves. Teenagers made you rethink what you had thought that night, in that alley, when his mother shoved that stake through her heart. Teenagers made you remember the smell of urine and the rain and how it poured, and how when you held him for the first time and looked down at that screaming little face, even though you weren't thinking about it then, there had been a dumpster five feet away.

"Dad?"

Angel fought the urge to smile at that sleepy voice, because in the sandman's epilogue his son almost sounded hopeful. And that's all Angel ever really wanted to hear out of his boy's mouth: hope. Hope for something real, something better. Something normal.

"Dad, I'm going to be sick."

But that's all it ever really was. Connor and the sickness.

_Is that what love is, Dad?_

He moved fast, but not fast enough. Soon, his favorite sheets were covered in his son's vomit, but he didn't mind. Angel loved his son, and because of this, loved the inconceivable and the ill. Loved the pain and the confusion, loved what never should have been and never should be.

"It's okay, Connor," he said quietly, watching the tears escape beneath the closed lids. "It happens. I should've been more prepared. It was my fault."

_You're the reason my life sucks..._

"It hurts, Dad."

"I know, son. I know."

And this time, Angel was quicker, ready with the wastebasket for when it all came up again.

* * *

TBC...  
  



	5. Choke

**A/N:** A bit of a continuation of the last chapter, because I know short chapters do suck. Haha. Bit more playful. Wrote it while I was hungover. Enjoy.

**Asphyxia  
Chapter Five**

* * *

Connor's hands were cold and they shook and his eyes were dazed, still blue, and drooping; sticky with vulgar sleep, his eyelashes were pasted to his face and his mouth, his tongue, his teeth - well, they burned and seethed at him. He hadn't been prepared for this when he took that glass to his dry, parched lips and drank greedily. 

Another purge and this time he missed the trash, instead emptying his stomach on his dad's shirt. Connor thought that was okay, since it wasn't a cool shirt. Not like the one he was wearing. It was ribbed and black and didn't feel as soft as silk against the skin and that made it okay, because if things were harsh and thick, as well as dark...

Well, that just made it more susceptible to evil.

"Sorry," he mumbled, and he wasn't sure if he felt sincerity or obligation. This was his father, his dad. The Scourge of Europe, the sin against God, the demon with the angelic face. They always told Connor that he looked just like his dad.

"How long did it take you to drink it?" Dad asked and Connor twitched a bit at the sharp tone that had suddenly entered the usually soft voice.

"Not long."

"You drank too much too fast."

"So?"

It was all Connor really could say, and of course, it was more of a snap. He hated Dad and he hated the thing Dad was, and he flinched and retracted his cheek away from that cold, cold digit wanting to touch it.

"Connor, you shouldn't-"

"Drink. You said that already,' the boy croaked and lowered his head back over the wastebasket, releasing more of his stomach contents.

"And if you do drink, you shouldn't drink fast. It could really-"

"Make me sick?" Connor cut him off again, cursing himself for allowing the pain to seep into his voice. "Yeah, I got that. You don't need to tell me what to do. I know."

Connor always knew eventually. It just took a strenuous system of trial and error to teach him what to know and how to know and why knowing was necessary. Knowing this, Connor wasn't sure if knowledge was worth it.

"But you didn't know and that's why..." Angel went on and on, speaking slowly and softly as if to a frightened animal and eventually, Connor just became tired of this, ducked his head into the pillow, and threw the now putrid duvet over his ears.

He didn't want to listen. Connor hated listening to the vampire speak, because what were a thing's words worth anyway? More than _this_, maybe, but not by much. In the darkness and warmth of his dad's bed, Connor found something akin to overindulgence - silence, peace, comfort, tenderness, and everything he wanted but knew he didn't deserve. Connor knew now, that things he didn't deserve were things that he could take.

The duvet was pulled down- an act accompanied by a, "Connor, please listen to me."

After all, that's how it was in this world. Lying and stealing brought you the best days of your life. Ignorance and denial rose the sun in the morning.

Connor sighed as his dad talked uselessly of the repercussions of alcohol consumption. Connor knew the repercussions of alcohol consumption.

He was feeling them. _Right. Now_.

He stifled a groan and shut his eyes, curled his toes around the rumpled sheets. His stomach was unsettled and he felt the bile rising in his throat yet again.

"Connor, kid, you okay? You gonna throw up again?"

Of course Connor was going to throw up again.

"Shit."

All over Dad's hair.

Even in sobriety's uncomfortable grasp, Connor managed to laugh this time. It was absolutely revolting, but he laughed and laughed and laughed until mirthful tears streamed down the sides of his face and his nose ran and he coughed up more regurgitated whiskey. Connor laughed until his laughs turned into sobs and his chest heaved from lack of air and he gasped for oxygen but he just couldn't seem to get enough.

"It's not funny."

Dad was indignant. Connor was suffocating.

"Oh, God. Son, breathe."

Connor felt himself being lifted into a sitting position, felt a hand on his back rubbing in circular motions and he struggled for what seemed like hours, but eventually his breathing slowed and entered normalcy's door.

"Good boy. That's my boy," Angel whispered.

"Puke-head," Connor returned, holding his breath against the fetid shirt

"Still not funny."

Dad was still indignant. Connor was still suffocating.

* * *

**TBC...  
Reviews are encouraging. :)**


	6. Play

**A/N:** As always, your reviews are most appreciated and make me happy. And that, my friends, is why reviewing is key.

**Asphyxia  
Chapter Six**

* * *

Eggs. Scrambled. Yellow, fluffy, decorated with ground black pepper that was strong enough to make Connor's nose run. Orange orange juice in a tall glass, burnt toast that felt coarse between his fingers. 

"Connor?"

The boy looked up at his dad's gentle tone.

"Are you going to play or are you going to eat?"

_Play_, Connor thought, scraping his toast against the edge of his plate. It was easier to play, to fiddle around with his food instead of putting it in his mouth, chewing, and swallowing. It was easier to poke at the happy mounds of egg with his fork, rather than allowing it to sustain his body.

He couldn't really feel the empty pit in his stomach, anyway. It was as tight as the double knots in his shoelaces.

"I'm not hungry, I guess."

But his shoes were dirty and Connor was barefoot and Dad looked worried.

"Connor..."

And the boy fought the urge, as he always did, to scoot his chair away as Angel took the seat next to him.

"You haven't eaten in days."

"I was sick yesterday," Connor replied, scooting his egg around on his plate. It made a terrible sound, as metal scratching glass usually does. A screeching sound. Like a shriek, or a scream. Of something inhuman. His game was rudely interrupted when the vampire snatched the utensil away. "Hey!"

"Forks," the vampire said slowly, "are made for eating."

_That's silly_, Connor thought, looking at the multi-pronged utensil. _It would puncture a lung._

He balked when he felt it against his lips, gently prying his mouth open.

"Dad!" he spluttered angrily, jerking his face away.

"You need to eat, Connor." And the vampire sighed as his son turned his head around, slouched, crossed his arms, rolled his eyes, sighed, jiggled his leg, and finally stood up. "Connor, _please_."

"_No," _Connor answered back, emphatically shaking his brown mane. Dad didn't understand because Dad never understood and Father never understood, either. It was the little things, like telling him to eat, that made Connor not want to eat. That made Connor want to run. That made Connor want to kill.

"Connor, c'mon...just a few eggs?" And Connor tightly clenched his fists, and ground his blunt, human teeth.

"I don't want any goddamned eggs." Because eggs were patronizing, and they stared at him as yellow and fluffy and sunny as the morning turning noon; the sun rising high in the sky to rudely scintillate through the trees and disrupt Connor's shade.

Eggs were for happy people who had light and Connor didn't have light because Connor had skin and light can't penetrate the skin, Connor knew.

_It's dark in here..._

"Connor." Dad was doing that voice now. That one that he used when he was done trying to be "pal"; the one where Dad tried to be Father, instead.

"No," the boy said again, this time his voice low and deadly. Because Dad couldn't make Connor; because Dad couldn't _take_ Connor. Connor was strong and Dad was weak and that was the way it was. Or the way it should have been.

Because Connor was a good boy, not wicked. He was Father's good boy. He _was_.

He had been.

"_Sit_. _Down_."

That's how it started and this is how it ended:

..._get out of my house._

The glass shattered then and the scrambled eggs scrambled across the floor, dirtying themselves with the filth Connor's shoes tracked in.

Connor wasn't sorry. Connor would never be sorry. **Never**.

"Deserved it," the boy murmured to himself, scratching a sharp, dirty nail over a soft finger. "Deserved it." You. You. You. _You_ still deserved it. Would always deserve it. _Your_ bloodshot eyes would stare at the ceiling at night, shifting in the darkness, flooded blue, and _you_ would hear their screams and _your_ stomach would clench and _you'd _vomit, and _you'd_ guzzle it down and only stop when the bottle was empty. "You, Dad. You." Connor said softly as Angel wiped his finger clean of blood. "You."

"Shh, Son."

"Don't want any eggs."

"I know."

"It's hot," Connor complained as he trembled from a sudden chill and Dad wrapped him in his arms and Connor let him. Because it _was_ hot, it _had been_ hot and demons had breathed fire; large, flickering, dangerous flames that shot through their ugly mugs. They had traipsed, grand and royal like kings through the land until Connor came along and chopped them to pieces.

He had been so little, so short and malnourished and he looked up at them and the knot in his stomach had grown tighter and everytime he pulled, the knot grew tighter around his wrists, too. The tree bark scraped against his little back and he cried little, pitiful, child tears, but Father never came.

"It's bleeding, Dad," he croaked now. "It hurts."

Dad didn't know what Connor was talking about because Dad never seemed to know. Dad didn't know where Connor came from.

But Dad took the finger still trickling with blood and kissed it.

"What does it taste like?" the boy asked because Dad drank lots of blood. Animal, human, demon...what was Connor?

"Home," the vampire replied and Connor shook some more.

"Why did you kiss it?"

"Because it makes it feel better." But it hadn't, Connor thought. Dad's kisses didn't heal Connor's wounds. "It's an age-old thing, son. I believe the very unmanly phrase would be 'kiss it better'."

Dad kissed Connor's head then.

"Oh," Connor said quietly, still wondering why age-old things never worked like they should.

* * *

**TBC...  
Don't forget to review... : )**


	7. Sugar

**A/N:** I wish I could update quicker and more often for you guys. :( Such fabulous readers, the lot of you. (Don't you love how I compliment you with the self-serving intent of getting more reviews?)

Anyway, I don't usually do dedications, but...this is for Antares who was being slowly devoured by the long wait. And for Davey Jones Locker, who is an amazing writer (and I know how you feel all too well), and for Angelfirenze who is also an amazing writer and just plain amazing. And actually, for everyone who reviews, because I just heart you all big. Well...and you motivate me to write more. )

Onto the story:

****

**Asphyxia**

**Chapter Seven**

* * *

Cheerios got soggy pretty fast, especially when you waved them back and forth through the milk with your spoon. Connor didn't like Cheerios very much. They were bland, open little holes that tasted like cardboard. There were different kinds of Cheerios. The honey nut kind was alright, but Dad didn't have that kind. The frosted kind was alright, too, but that kind was also upsettingly absent from the Hyperion's food stock. No, Connor didn't get those kinds. He got the ordinary kind. 

"Sugar," Dad had tried to persuade him. "Sometimes it tastes better with sugar." And the large, cold hand had shoved forth a bowl of sweet, white sugar to which Connor only stared. There wasn't only cereal, of course. There was still the toast and the orange juice and a fine array of doughnuts from which Connor could choose.

But he didn't choose. He just stared and swiped with his spoon. Dad was cleaning the broken plate and scrambled eggs from the floor and he must have accidentally cut himself because Connor could smell the blood, and at the scent, his stomach clenched.

"Connor," Dad pleaded. "Please eat something. Just..one thing. Anything."

Connor didn't want to eat. He might have wanted to eat, but Dad wanted him to eat, and that meant that Connor shouldn't eat. Because if Connor ate, Dad would be pleased and if Dad was pleased, he might feel relief.

And if Dad felt relief, then Dad might stop worrying.

* * *

Night fell early, or so it seemed. Connor wasn't sure anymore - counting the hours had turned mundane the moment everything started melding together. The stars were a blur in the black sky and the city lights dulled them significantly. 

These were Connor's thoughts as he trailed behind his father on the rooftop.

"Are you sure you feel up to fighting, kiddo?" Dad asked for the third time. He'd asked it twice before. Connor didn't understand why questions were so often repeated.

"I'm sure," Connor replied for the third time. He'd answered that question twice before. Connor also didn't understand why he had to waste his breath in repeating himself.

It seemed he had so little breath to waste.

Dad stopped suddenly and Connor listened but didn't hear anything. He tried to take a step forward, but Dad grabbed his arm and stopped him from going any farther.

"What is it?"

"Shh."

So Connor snapped his mouth shut, although not without feeling that bitter little mite creeping up his skin. He waited, feeling increasingly impatient as the slow moments passed by, and Dad gripped his arm.

"Dad-"

But Angel hushed him and Connor sighed, tugging his arm out of the vampire's grasp. Then he heard it - the sounds of a scuffle and the whimpers and the pleading. Faintly. Growing louder as it went on.

Connor acted on instinct. That's what Connor did. That's what Connor had always been encouraged to do. Do the right thing. Destroy the evil. Be good.

So Connor was good and Connor destroyed the evil and Connor raced to the other side of the rooftop, Dad hissing his disapproval behind him, hot on his heels.

And Connor leapt, as Connor tended to do, off of the roof, into the alley. With the knife to his north, the victim to his south, and the damp brick of the alley walls to his east and west, Connor was right where he always seemed to find himself.

In the thick of the thorny bramble.

A mugging. Human against human. Nothing supernatural, just the everyday conflict of humanity. Just the reason why Connor hated this world- the harsh, cold, cruel L.A. night that proved that evil was in all.

"What in the hell?"

He sounded so surprised and confused, this mugger did. This evil person. A human, with a beating heart and blunt teeth and hair and nails that stopped growing after being extracted from the body.

_A human_, Connor thought. _An inherently good being._

Connor's thoughts, the blur and the mold that he was caught in, threw him off of his game and he was stabbed in the arm before he even thought about blocking.

Before he could return the blow, Dad stepped in. As Dad always seemed to do. Twisted the guy's arm and threw him against the cold, urine-scented brick. Growled.

The victim was gone. Scrambled off, Connor guessed, when he had entered as the distraction. Humans were a cowardly sort who didn't stick around for the fight. Humans got rest and peace of mind and had real families and felt love and paid in paper currency. They had beds, real beds, which they slept in during the night while Connor crept about, murdering their imaginary monsters.

Connor was a good boy sometimes. He tried. Just like Father told him to do.

"_Connor_."

Other times, he was Dad's wicked boy. Or maybe he was still Father's good boy, as Dad was angry. It didn't matter anymore anyway. Father was dead and gone. Dad was dead, but not gone.

Connor was dead, too. It was just nobody realized it yet.

"You _don't_ run off like that. You were hurt-"

And Dad ranted on and on and Connor blocked him out as was the way of Connor when it came to Dad. On and on and on, the cold lips moved and words poured out and the brown eyes bore angrily into the blue ones, which blinked in boredom as the dead hands tended to the fresh wound.

Which healed, of course, as fast as it was slashed.

Father used to scold Connor this way. Used to lecture on and on if Connor wasn't fast enough, if Connor didn't destroy the evil before the evil hurt him. On and on and on, Father's lips would move and if Connor didn't listen, the aging hand would strike the boy's tender, young cheek.

"Are you even listening to me?"

Out of habit, Connor flinched.

A chilled digit touched his cheek and Connor shivered, looked away.

"Hey...you don't have to listen. Just, uh...don't do it again...okay?"

Connor gave Dad a calculating look before nodding. Then smirking. Then responding with the age-old, "I could have taken him" causing Dad to chuckle. Then asking for Oreos, because Connor was hungry.

Dad looked delighted at the prospect and dragged his son to the closest convenience store.

Father was dead and gone. Dad was dead, but not gone. Connor was dead, too, but nobody seemed to realize it.

It's better to be dead.

Life is a bland, open, little hole

Sometimes it tastes better with sugar.

* * *

**TBC...**

**Hmm...I'm not too sure about how I feel about that somewhat happy ending of a chapter. I suppose it wasn't TOO happy, but I do love my angst.**


	8. Monster

A/N: Little different. It's going somewhere. You just have to trust me. And give it time. I have work and school to think about.

****

**Asphyxia**

**Chapter Eight**

* * *

Once upon a time, there lived a boy named Steven Holtz. Steven had a father, named Daniel, and they lived together in a very dark place called Quortoth. Daniel was a good father, who taught his son the difference between good and evil. In Quortoth, that wasn't very hard to do.

There were monsters in the dark land. Some had horns, others scales. Some were tall and intimidating, others lithe and meek. It didn't matter, really, what they looked like. They were all evil. If their heart wasn't in their chest and their eyes weren't a duet, they weren't good.

One day, Steven decided to try out his new toy. The fun one with the sharp blade and the beautifully chiseled handle. Daniel had been feeling generous the day before and given him his Christmas present early. Christmas, Steven had learned, was the twenty-fifth day of December in which humans, the good, celebrated the birth of Christ. Christ, Steven knew, was the son of God.

And God had given him to Father.

"When's Christmas?" Steven often asked, because he always looked forward to presents. As any self-respecting child does.

Father would pat his head and scold him for being selfish. He would then remind Steven that he didn't know when Christmas was. There was no December in Hell.

Now, Steven's sharp nose caught the scent of dirt, but not earth. There was evil in filth and the crunching of leaves beneath his feet continued long after he had stopped walking. Daniel was standing next to a tree, arms crossed, a small smile of encouragement on his aging face. The ground ruptured.

Steven jumped, almost lost his sword but snatched the handle out of the air and took the correct fighting stance. Steven was a warrior, a knight, everything that was good and dear and noble. Because that's what he had been raised to be.

But, oh, it was huge. A giant monster this time that towered eight feet above Steven and the boy looked with wide, frightened eyes into the twenty glowing orbs and ninety sharp teeth. It had no appendages and merely bullied Steven with its serpent's coil, hissing and spitting and rising higher by the moment.

"F-father," Steven stuttered.

"Fight, my boy," Father sounded jovial. "You can do this."

"I...I can't."

"You _can_," Daniel contradicted. Then after a moment of nothing, added, "It would be best for you if you did."

So Steven fought and dodged and wondered if Daniel would still think him good if his heart was in his throat and not in his chest. Steven was a good fighter, quick and clever. He was also very strong.

Because Steven's biological parents, Daniel frequently reiterated, were _vampires_. Things that drank the blood of the innocent.

They had hearts in their chests and eyes that were duets, but their hearts didn't beat. And the dead, Daniel had lectured, should never walk. It was not God's wish.

"Steven!" Daniel yelled now, as his adopted son was bitten with those sharp teeth and stung with the glare of those glowing orbs, "FIGHT."

But Steven didn't win and the evil went triumphantly into the ground, leaving the boy crying in pain and defeat.

"I'm not dead," Steven said to Daniel, backing away from the older man. "That means I didn't really lose. Right?"

"You didn't try hard enough."

"I did."

"You haven't been practicing."

"I have!"

Daniel raised an eyebrow and frowned. "Lying is evil's work."

"It's the truth, Father."

But as much as Daniel tried , he could never put God's light into such dark roots. And he tried so hard, so very hard...

* * *

Angel woke abruptly to the sounds of his son's sobs, leaping to his feet and causing the thick book of Grimm's Fairy Tales to fall to the ground. He put a dead, yet gentle hand, through his son's recently cleaned hair and whispered the boy's name with a certain amount of urgency.

"I tried," his son croaked. "I'm good."

And Angel shook the boy a bit, spoke a little louder.

"Come on, son, wake up. You're having a nightmare."

Eventually, the blue eyes opened and the boy saw his father, the thing. His father, with the angelic face full of youth, paled by lack of light and blood flow. His father, who loved his friends like family, and his son like life .

The boy saw his father's hands, sculpted hands, dead and cold hands. Hands that turned to fists and hit him until he bled.

"I'm good," the boy murmured, eyes flickering shut.

"You are. You're very good." Angel's voice rose with a tinge of worry. "What was your nightmare about?"

"Fairy tales," the boy said quietly. "You shouldn't read to me. I'm too old."

"Never."

"Always."

And Angel watched his son shift and sigh and try to fall back to sleep and he wondered why his little boy would never be able to dream of sweet things, as all children should.

"Would it be better if I made something up?" he asked after a while.

"A story?" the boy inquired, his eyes blinking slow as he fathomed the idea. "I guess."

So Angel stroked his son's hair with his dead hand and searched his long-winded head for something sweetened with solace.

"Once upon a time," he began, because that was always the best way. "Once upon a time, there lived a boy named Connor Angel..."

* * *

**Healing process begins next.**

**Reviewing, gentle readers, is _key_.**


	9. Storybook

**A/N:** Ehhhhh. This chapter was so hard to write. It went in a completely ridiculous direction and actually ended the story at one point, which I might add an extra chapter after the story's actually complete for that most amazing deleted scene. I'm not too pleased with it. I'm not too good at letting things heal. Thanks for the all the reviews, by the way.

**Asphyxia**

**Chapter Nine**

* * *

A sad story was the story of Connor Angel. A fairy tale where the stepsisters were uglier than sin and the prick of a pin dropped the boy dead. No kiss, no cure. A counter full of medication, bottles tripping over bottles, and not one warning on one label. Not one instruction in the case of mishap. Not one pill less of an overdose.

Not one moment, in seventeen years dreaming, of waking from this nightmare.

Connor shifted now so that his arm brushed his father's, but he never looked up. Wesley and Fred and Gunn and god forbid, that filthy demon, _Lorne_, were in the room. And they all looked at him with mixed eyes full of accusation and doubt, sympathy and worry.

If there was an explanation for where they'd been the past few days, Connor didn't care to hear it. In fact, he wasn't allowed to hear it. Angel had sent him upstairs for some nonsensical reason that Connor was just too tired to argue with.

"Why don't you go upstairs and read something?" Dad had asked with an encouraging smile and eyes that lied by omission. Connor hated those eyes, because those eyes were the eyes he'd seen from the very beginning. The eyes he'd seen before he'd been sent off to see the ocean for the first time.

The vast, huge, salty ocean where Connor had sunk those eyes.

"Connor," Dad said now and Connor twitched, because he didn't like the careful way in which the vampire spoke. It sounded like Dad was the antelope and Connor was the lion, and the latter was about to be tricked out of his meal.

"Yeah?" Connor prompted, eyeing his father with a long-endured suspicion that would never really go away.

"There's something I have to talk to you about." Connor looked around to see Angel's friends were quietly exiting the room and he quickly decided that out of all the games he played with his dad, this was the one he hated the most.

* * *

The story of Connor Angel is a long, drawn out tale of vindication and deceit, the longing for acceptance and the inevitable rejection, the need in want, the love you find in hate. Connor's tale is a tale of winter solstice and life's end - a wound, gaping and gallant, seeping blood by the gallons with the promise of rest.

But his eyes were open and his lids ached, for sad boys with worried fathers were boys forced to heal.

"I don't like it here."

"It's only for an hour, Connor."

Blue eyes flashed and took in the office lobby with its clean, flat, blue carpet, immaculate white walls, and cheerful receptionist working happily at her somewhat-less-cleanly reception desk. Children's toys littered one of the corners and a wide range of outdated magazines were scattered untidily across the table, in which Connor had propped his feet.

An older woman with a strict face and a walking cane sat nearby, looking at the boy's dirty shoes in disapproval. Connor pretended not to notice.

"Dad, why can't we just leave?"

"Because you have an appointment."

"Well, I didn't make it."

"Don't be difficult."

Connor sighed. He didn't know where the thing got these ideas – these crazy, unnecessary ideas. Therapy, his dad had called it. A specialist. Someone who could help Connor be happier.

"Do they know I'm a freak?" Connor grumbled.

"You're not a freak."

"Well, do they know that I'm not normal?"

"Yes."

_Which_, Connor thought, _only makes it worse_. That meant that this specialist, whatever it happened to be, came at the recommendation of Wesley or Lorne. Wesley, who was at fault for Connor's entire unhappy existence; or Lorne, who was a filthy demon. Connor didn't approve of either, and thus, knew that he could pass this entire excursion off as a "bad idea".

"Connor Angel?"

Connor glanced up to see the insufferable receptionist outside of her desk, propping the door open for him.

"Your turn, sweetheart."

Connor looked to Dad, who patted him on the back.

"Aren't you coming?"

But Dad shook his head and Connor sat still and rigid.

"You have to go in yourself, pal."

"Why?"

"Because I can't be there."

So Connor got up, albeit slowly, and walked in the manner of a man to the electric chair, through the awaiting door. He followed the happy woman, with the smiling face, down a short hallway and into a warm room.

His eyes flittered from the wood paneling and leather sofa, to the shining wooden desk and the middle-aged man behind it.

"You'll be just fine, honey," the receptionist assured him with a smile so big Connor thought her teeth might break. She retreated out of the room in a most cautious manner, walking backwards, eyes on the desk, all the way out the door.

Hearing the click of the shutting door, Connor immediately asked, "Are you a demon?" Since, after all, that was always Connor Angel's first question.

"Yes," the 'specialist' answered honestly. "But you can call me Dr. Rob."

Against Father's will, Connor sat on the leather sofa and gave this new monster a long, scrutinizing look.

"Do you have any other questions you'd like to ask me?" Dr. Rob prodded.

Connor shook his head.

"Is there anything you'd like to tell me about why you've come to see me?"

"My dad made me."

"And do you know why he made you?"

Silence hit the room like a fist to the gut, and Connor Angel sat with eyes to the wood paneling, scuffing the toe of a dirty sneaker along the clean floor.

"Connor?"

"I don't know."

Connor didn't like this strange room, with this foreign creature that asked him questions that he didn't want to answer. He didn't know why he was here, or why Dad made him come, or why the stupid vampire would make him go in alone.

Dr. Rob asked him questions, lots of questions. Brief questions worded in a very to-the-point way, as if they were directed towards a very small child.

A very small child who set puppies on fire for fun.

Connor didn't answer any of these questions, choosing instead to dirty the floor and stare at the lines between the paneling. After the hour was up, he was sent out to wait in the lobby while a most exasperated Dr. Rob held a short conference with a nervous-looking Angel.

Connor had a few storybooks, all of which came in different packaging. The first, he was pretty sure, was acrylic and fuzzy and smelled like baby powder. The second was bound in human skin and written in blood.

As he slumped in the lobby chair and crossed his arms sulkily over his chest, he wondered, perhaps, if this was the first chapter of the third. And if it was the third, between what were the words written?

"You ready to go, pal?"

"Yeah."

Father and son exited the building in silence.

Connor Angel was a closed book, a vague poem, a novel written out of syntax.

His cover meant everything.

* * *

**TBC...**

Reviewing makes me mighty happy.


	10. Allowance

**A/N:**This is different. Sorryit's been so long. Also,this is more of an interlude than anything else. Not really a chapter. It's compose almost completelyofdialogue, for those of you who enjoy the idea of them actually talking.Hope you guys are still reading.I'm also really not a fan of this new quickeditlayout. ::narrows eyes::. Anyway, I hope you'll continue reading after this chapter. I'm not really a fan,but I suppose I wrote it so why not post it.

**Asphyxia**

**Chapter Ten**

"Are we poor?"

Angel looked up from the clothing rack in surprise at his son's question.

"What?"

"Are we poor?" Connor repeated. "Financially inept? Deprived of money?" He fingered the soft material of a Gap sweater, his blue eyes lingering on the details of the thread. "Cordelia would sometimes talk about it...but everyone wears such expensive clothes." Nimbly, the price tag was plucked out of the neck and displayed to his father. "$50. Isn't that a lot for poor people?"

Angel shrugged. The going rate for the Armani pants he was presently sporting was $125. The shirt? $98. $50 for a Gap sweater seemed like a reasonable deal. Of course it wasn't reasonable for the majority of the world. There was starvation and poverty to consider. A large family could eat comfortably on Angel's pants for a week.

But Angel liked his pants.

"We're comfortable," he replied, ignoring his son's actual question. He then noticed the shirt for the first time. "Do you like that?"

"It's soft," Connor replied, ignoring his father's actual question. "And it's green."

Angel gently picked the sweater out of his son's hands and looked at the tag. After a moment's scrutiny, he placed it carefully back on the rack, glanced at his kid's disappointed expression, and picked up another.

"You're a bit too small for that one, kiddo," he quietly teased, holding the garment against his boy's small frame. "You wanna try it on?"

Connor shook his head and ducked away, embarrassed.

"I don't like trying things on."

"Sometimes when you try things on, you don't like them as much as you did when you first saw them."

"Is it too much?"

Angel raised an eyebrow, confused.

"No, I just want to make sure you want it."

Connor cocked his head, searching his father's face for secret disapproval.

"Do you not like it?"

"I like it plenty," his father replied. "I'm just opposed to spending $50 on something you're not going to wear."

"I'm going to wear it," Connor snapped, defensive now.

Angel smiled at his son's temper, reached out a large hand and smoothed down a lock of the unruly brown hair . Connor blushed, batted his hand away.

"Dad, there's people in here."

"You need pants."

"Pants are expensive."

"They're also necessary." Angel paused, noticing his son's red face. "Am I embarrassing you? You know people can't hear as well as we can and I'm being relatively quiet."

"Just being seen with you is embarrassment enough," the boy grumbled, picking up a rather detestable pair of jeans from the sale table. "These are only $20."

Angel grunted, jerked the offensive denim articles out of his son's grasp and set them back down. A few moments of fishing later, he produced what he considered to be a decent pair of $60 jeans and led the boy to the checkout line.

"Why are you so concerned about money?"

Connor shrugged.

"People hurt eachother over it. I assumed it was a big deal."

Angel frowned. "Yeah. I guess they do."

"Money is the root of all evil," Connor mused. "I heard that somewhere. If it spawns evil, we shouldn't use too much of it... right? I mean, it would be like killing a demon with a big sword, but the utilization of that big sword spawned two more demons in it's place. Then it wouldn't be good to use that sword, right?"

"It's a bit different from that, Connor," his father replied quietly.

"But it's just like that, Dad," Connor was quick to retort. "Everytime someone spends money on something useless, it could be spent on something essential for somebody who can't afford essential things. Isn't that a form of greed?"

Angel handed the sales clerk his credit card and looked at his son.

"Connor..."

"People kill for it because they can't get enough of it," Connor said softly. "It's greed and it's gluttony."

Angel scribbled his signature down on the receipt and smiled at the bewildered clerk.

"Kids these days. So concerned with morality," he said nervously, accepting the bag and slinging his free arm around his son's shoulder, leading him quickly out of the store.

"God doesn't like greed," Connor murmured as his father gently pushed him down onto a bench. "I don't understand how you can just put a price on things like that."

"Certain things are valued for quality-sake. Others, quantity," Angel explained helplessly.

"But how do you value something's worth?" Connor asked. "Isn't it greedy to spend $50 on a sweater when you could get five $10 sweaters for people who really need them?"

"A lot of people need a lot of things, Connor. You can't be completely selfless-"

"Or what if someone deserved the $50 sweater more than me?" Connor cut him off. "Why didn't you buy it for them?"

"Because you're my kid."

It was automatic and it might not have been the best response, but it was the answer that hadn't left Angel's tongue since Darla's dust had been washed away by the rain.

"That's-"

"Valid. You come first." Angel touched his son's cheek with a cold digit. "Money isn't about deserving, it's about what you can afford."

"How much do people cost?"

"I think selling people might just be illegal."

"But I'm costing you money. You just spent $110 on me. And food costs money. And-"

"And you need those things-"

"But why are you spending all of this money on something so worthless?"

Angel stared at his son.

"You're not worthless."

"I-"

"No- You're. Not. Worthless."

Connor slouched on the bench and sighed, staring at the passerby in silence.

"What's this all about, son?"

Blue eyes met brown momentarily before settling on the mall tile.

"Dr. Demon."

It was Angel's turn to sigh.

"Do I have to see him again?"

"...Yeah."

Unintentionally, Connor's foot rose and fell harshly on the ground.

"Don't like him," the boy mumbled, straightening slightly at the vampire's frown. "How much do you pay him?"

Angel groaned.

"The going rate," he said.

"What's the going rate?"

"None of your concern."

"I'll double it."

Angel snorted.

"Connor, exactly how do you plan-"

"With my allowance."

"You don't have an allowance."

"I want one."

Angel fought the urge to laugh.

"Weren't you just really afraid of being greedy?"

"Not afraid. Concerned. Give me an allowance and I'll double the going rate."

"Connor. Any allowance I would give you would not be enough to double the going rate."

"Then why are you spending so much on something I don't really want?"

"Because you might just need it."

"Don't."

"I'll be the judge of that."

Connor scowled.

"You suck."

Angel rolled his eyes.

"You need underwear."

Horrified, sharp blue eyes darted around for listeners.

"Dad!"

"No one heard."

"You don't know that for sure."

"Do."

The vampire and his kid rose to their feet to walk amongst the living.

"I'll buy you ice cream," Angel said after a moment. "You like ice cream, don't you?"

Connor mumbled something decidedly incoherent.

"What was that?"

"Yes, Dad. I like ice cream."

"Well, if you don't really want ice cream, I won't buy you ice cream."

"I want ice cream," Connor groaned.

"You sure?"

"Yeah."

"After the underwear."

"God, why didn't I just stay gone after you kicked me out..."

Angel took a moment to reach a hand over and ruffle the boy's hair.

"Because you're my kid."

"Unfortunately."

_Gap Crew Neck Sweater:_ **$50**

_Gap Boot Fit Jeans:_ **$60**

_Suicidal Miracle Child Swaddled in Gap Clothing?_ **Priceless.**


	11. Something

**A/N: **Hey, guys. Thanks for the reviews, they were most encouraging. Here's a little angst-ridden present for you. :)

**  
Asphyxia**

**Chapter Eleven**

* * *

Connor moved silently through the alley, quick and lithe like a young tomcat. He held his breath between the urine-soaked brick, kicked the empty beer cans and wine bottles to the side, wincing when they clinked and clanked. It was important to be silent when you were Connor Angel. Important to have stealth, and grace. Most of all, it was important to be able to lie well, lie often, and lie in various ways. 

Dad knew when he lied, so Connor changed the way that he lied. He kept his passages clear now, and he didn't falsify the love in his eyes - just rested into his father that gleam of affection the thing had earned over the past weeks.

"Hey, kid. Spare an old man some change?" a gruff old bum with a grisly beard asked. Connor jumped and stared, taking in the cardboard box on which this unfortunate human was perched. Connor fished through his pockets but came up with nothing.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I don't have anything."

"Nothin', huh?" the old man chuckled. "Yup. Know how that is."

Connor fidgeted for a moment, uncomfortable with the fact that he was wearing $110 worth of clothes and it was obvious that he did have something, while this old man clearly had nothing.

"Is this where you live?" the boy asked.

"For tonight," the bum replied.

"How come?"

"Hard luck, kid. Hard luck." The dirty head was cocked to the side and the dulled, sleep-encrusted eyes studied Connor with an almost disconcerting knowledge. "Isn't it a little late for a kid your age to be out?"

"I'm old enough," Connor sniffed indignantly.

"How old?"

"Seventeen."

"Almost a man, aren't ya?" the old man laughed this time, and Connor shuddered at how manic it sounded.

"Well...yeah."

After collecting himself, the bum sighed and looked at Connor with mirthful eyes. "Sorry, kid. You look younger in the dark." Connor remained silent, and he continued, "Does your mother know you're out this late?"

"She's dead."

"How about your old man? Does he know?"

_He's dead, too._

"No. He thinks I'm in bed."

"Does he beat you?"

_Not recently._

"No."

"Out for a night with friends, then, are ya?"

"No."

Dull eyes, so dull, and they looked at Connor in that sad way that only dull eyes had.

"Then why the hell are you out here, kid?"

Connor started to walk away.

"Couldn't sleep."

And he walked quickly out of the alley, trying to block out the, "Go home!" that was called so desperately after him.

Two sessions with that insufferable Dr. Rob and Connor could only feel himself becoming angrier. And that same old woman, with the walking cane and the strict face, was there again, always there, and she always looked at Connor's dirty shoes with an aristocratic-like disgust. Connor sometimes wondered if she would try to hit them with her cane, and he wondered if she did, what would happen. He wondered if Angel would get angry and yell at her and finally understand that this was not a place where Connor would reach a decent degree of mental health, but a place that would only end with the possession of battered feet and a sullen face.

Connor had remained tight-lipped again. Not a word spilt from his tongue this time.

Because silence was important.

He walked into another alley, a bit less than silent and a bit less than graceful.

"Here, kitty kitty kitty."

Connor shuddered at the feminine voice as he turned around.

"Aren't you a pretty boy?" the vampire crooned and Connor looked her over - at the torn fishnets and the scuffed pumps and the shirt hanging off her slim torso; the bobbed, dirty, tangled brown hair and the messily applied mascara - and he felt disgust.

"I guess," he said softly.

"Does Daddy know you're out playing past your bedtime?"

Connor shook his head, his hand creeping into his pocket for a stake.

"Wouldn't he be mad?" she asked, with a patronizing smile that made Connor's fist clench. "He killed my clan, you know. I believe you were there with him." At the boy's raised eyebrow, she added with a note of exasperation, "The other night, little boy."

"Oh yeah," Connor replied tonelessly. "That was fun."

"Well, wouldn't he be mad?" she asked. "Wouldn't he be mad to know the situation you got yourself into?"

Another vampire dropped from the roof of one of the buildings, followed by another, and another. One, filthy and reeking of garbage, climbed out of a dumpster, his face smeared with dirt and a mixture of old, molding food.

Connor's hand tightened around his stake and his muscles tensed with anticipation. After all, his old man didn't beat him and he had no friends and his mother was dead.

And he couldn't sleep.

He could fight, though. He could leap and dodge their blows, and he could kick off of the damp bricks, and connect his foot with their jaws and jab at their hearts with his stake. And he could watch them explode and see their dust scatter and become indecipherable from the dirt and urine and garbage littering the cold concrete of the alley. Just another speck, another particle, like any other. The mundane and the old and the tired falling to the ground after a satisfying exchange of fists and feet.

Connor felt a hand around his throat and others around his arms, and he kicked and he writhed, but deep down he knew he was caught. And he was thrown against the wall, and a flash of fangs glittered before his eyes.

"I bet he tastes magical."

"He is the miracle child, after all."

Connor started to cry and he choked because he couldn't breathe - the fingers were tight and constricting and unrelenting around his throat.

He was so, so close to getting there. So close to sleep, but he smelled Dad and the fingers went away and he gasped and fell to the ground, sobbing.

Moments later, he felt a familiar hand run through his hair and all he could think about was how he had been so close to sleep.

"You were supposed to be in bed," Dad's soft voice whispered, stained with a gentle disapproval Connor had come to know vaguely well.

"Couldn't sleep."

"Doesn't matter. Its dangerous out here."

Connor raised his tear-stained face to look at his father, and his father's worried brown eyes, and tense frown.

"I didn't want to stay in."

"You could have been killed."

"I didn't want to stay in."

Angel sighed and pulled Connor to his feet, hugged his child against his broad chest for a moment before relaxing his hold.

"Your new sweater got torn," he said, fingering the small tear in the shoulder.

"Sorry," Connor apologized, his voice small and weak. "Didn't mean to. I'll pay for it."

"With your nonexistent allowance? I don't care about the sweater, Connor." Angel gently enveloped his son's wrist with his fingers, and led him in the direction of the hotel.

"Are you mad at me?"

"No."

"You're acting mad."

" I'm not acting mad."

"You are."

"I'm not."

Connor remained silent for the rest of the trip home.

Once in the hotel, Connor watched from the top of the entrance steps as Angel took off his leather coat, placing it first on the counter of the reception desk, then on the lobby sofa. He watched his father pace and pick absentmindedly at his nails.

"Dad?"

Angel kept his eyes on the ground as he asked in a hardened tone, "Why did you leave?"

"I couldn't sleep."

"Connor."

"Well, I couldn't."

"What was bothering you?"

"Nothing."

Connor jumped when he heard his father's feral growl reverberating from the back of the creature's throat.

"Something was bothering you. You don't have to tell me what it is, but I know something was. Don't LIE to me, son."

The boy fidgeted for a moment, uncomfortable in his place as the receiving end of the vampire's glare. Then sobered, his own gaze freezing over in defiance.

"Why shouldn't I? It's none of your business if something's bothering me."

"It is when it results in you nearly getting your throat ripped out."

"God! Why can't you just **leave me alone**!?" Connor yelled, stomping towards the staircase. It was okay to be melodramatic when feeling a surge of hatred for the thing. He often was. He was seventeen years old. He had the right.

Angel was fast, always faster than Connor, and his hand was around boy's upper arm before Connor could even absorb the information that his father had moved.

"Because I love you, damnit. Why can't you understand that?" he asked through clenched teeth.

Connor winced at the tight grasp and tried to pull away, but the thing was relentless.

"Dad, you're hurting me."

"I'm hurting you? You're scaring the hell out of me."

"Dad, let go!"

Angel didn't, pulling his son against his chest once again in a frantic hug, releasing his death grip only to put the pressure on the boy's back.

"You can't do things like this, Connor."

But Connor was born to do things like this. He'd been doing things like this his entire life. He'd done things like this only months ago, when Dad had kicked him out of the hotel.

"Things like what?" he asked, feigning ignorance, his voice muffled against his father's shirt.

"Things like leaving without telling me where you're going."

"Why not?"

"Because it scares me."

"Why?"

"Need I reference the fact that you almost got your throat ripped out again?"

Connor remained silent for what seemed like hours before softly confiding, "I just wanted to sleep."

Angel made a sound, something between a whimper and a cry, and buried his face in his son's hair.

Connor closed his eyes against his dad's shirt, allowing himself to relax into the hug. He thought about the old grisly man with the filthy beard. He thought about how that man had nothing.

Connor had empty pockets and a torn sweater and a dead father's embrace.

* * *

**TBC...**


	12. Interlude

**Asphyxia**

_A Short Music-Inspired Interlude.

* * *

_

_You're in my web now – I've come to wrap you up tight before it's time to bite down._

**- Cursive, "The Recluse"**

* * *

Connor wondered why he had an alarm clock when he never bothered to set the time. It blinked, a dull green light in his tired eyes, a flashy lie of 8 am, when clearly it was only 2. Angel was in his room, large and obtrusive – restless. Sitting at the side of Connor's bed. Then leaning against the wall. Then staring out at the night sky – a black mass tinted orange by the careless L.A. lights. Then he was outside the door. Then downstairs. 

Then he was back where he started, brown eyes on Connor's lethargic face.

Sometimes he would ask, "Not asleep, yet?"

And Connor would shake his head and reply, "Why don't you go somewhere else?"

Which incited a suspicious, "Where else would I rather be?" from Angel, before settling on the bed next to Connor and running an agitated hand through the brown hair.

In the dark, his father was pale as a ghost and Connor imagined those white hands going right through his skull, fading into nothingness inside his head. He wondered what games those long fingers could play with his brain. And those eyes, with that concern; those arms that held him so, so tight; and those legs strong enough to walk upright, bearing guilt and worry and fear; he wondered about this illusion – the masterfully heinous vampire contradicted by his goodhearted heroics, and loving concern for his misled son.

"I can't sleep with you here," Connor mumbled, moving his head to rest on his father's stomach.

Connor had been able to feel Father's pulse this way. He had been able to hear the sputterings and gargles of Father's digestive system at work.

"Promise me you'll stay," Angel quietly ordered.

_Blink blink blink_, went the little digital alarm clock. Eight in the morning. The sun's up and the worst is over.

He heard his father sigh softly, and it sounded high-pitched and gentle, almost like a woman's. So Connor thought about Cordelia - beautiful Cordelia and her clever, little entrapments. The way he laid entangled in her arms, smelling sweet because that's the way she smelled, and how she stroked his hair just like this – like Angel. With careful hands and concerned eyes.

"No promise?" Angel's voice asked distantly.

Cordelia had been dead then, because the dead weren't real. Or real people weren't dead. Either one. Cordelia hadn't been real; just an illusion, a fleeting dream of flowers and kisses and first love; a noncommittal passerby and the thickest of thieves.

"Not going then," Dad said, as Connor closed his eyes.

It was 2 in the morning.

The clock was blinking 8.

* * *

**More soon. **

* * *

**Other songs that inspired this interlude:**

Cursive - _Bloody Murderer_

Cursive -_Driftwood: A Fairytale_

Bright Eyes - _Center of the World_

...and I think the clock blinking 8 thing might have come from some Dashboard Confessional song at the back of my mind. I might be wrong.


	13. Smother

**Asphyxia**

* * *

The sun was like rain that day – huge streams of golden light raining down on his boy, causing Angel to notice for the first time the natural blond highlights in Connor's hair. He watched behind glass, in the safety of the shadows, as his listless son sat in the garden, fussing with a twig, crumpling a few leaves. Picking a flower. 

Connor looked pale.

And sad.

And so, so small.

The vampire longed to join his offspring; to step outside and not burn to ash, to grant his child some sense of normalcy. Connor needed new shoes – the ones he had were falling apart. Detached soles, and torn fabric. They were dirty, too. Always tracked dirt in the house. Mud and blood and dirt – filth.

Angel wished he could do something with his son. Something real. Like take him to a ballgame, or teach him how to shave. It was a shame that Connor was past that age.

They never did anything together other than fight and sleep and cry.

* * *

"How's your dad?"

"Fine."

"Done anything fun lately?"

"I met a man who lived in a cardboard box."

Dr. Rob looked vaguely startled at this declaration, and raised his eyebrows at the boy who sat so stiffly in front of him, that sullen glare never leaving those blue eyes – not for a second.

"Really? What was his name?"

"Don't know."

"What did you think about this man?"

"He was annoying." Connor crossed his arms as he said this, relaxed into a slump on the couch, and waited for the next inane question to drop from the demon's tongue.

"Why did you think he was annoying?"

"He asked me a lot of personal questions that I didn't feel like answering."

Dr. Rob smiled tiredly at this and said, "Did you think anything else about him?"

"He should have a job. So then he wouldn't have to sleep on a cardboard box."

"Easier said than done," the shrink remarked. "20 of homeless people are employed. They just don't get enough money to live comfortably in this world."

Connor shrugged. "I don't think he had a job. I don't think he could get a job smelling as bad as he does."

Dr. Rob chuckled. "Sometimes that does make it tough. How did he make you feel?"

Connor shrugged.

"Did his unfortunate situation make you feel sad?" Dr. Rob tried again.

"No," Connor lied. "He has a box."

Dr. Rob paused, searching the boy's face for a moment, before nodding and asking, "And you think a box is enough to make him happy?"

"He laughed like he was happy," Connor mused, the memory of the manic laughter ringing in his ears.

"I'm sure he did. What did your dad think about your new friend?"

"He's not my friend," Connor snapped. "He's an old man who lives on a box."

"Well, what did your dad think about the old man who lives on a box?"

Connor shrugged. "He wasn't there."

"He wasn't?"

Connor shook his head.

"Were you supposed to be there?"

Connor gritted his teeth. "I can do what I want."

"I'm sure you can. Have you and your dad been getting along?"

"I guess. He buys me things."

"Things?"

"Clothes and books and ice cream," Connor clarified.

"And you appreciate this?"

Connor shrugged. "I like the ice cream. And he says the clothes are necessary."

"What about the books?"

"He won't buy me anything I want to read."

"What do you want to read?"

"_American Psycho_."

"And what did he buy you?"

Connor sighed. "_Dubliners_."

"Do you and your dad do anything else together?"

The boy shrugged again. "He watches me eat. He gets angry when I don't."

"Would you eat if he didn't watch you?"

"Maybe. He watches me sleep, too."

Dr. Rob paused. "Anything else?"

"We patrol sometimes."

"Patrol?"

"For vampires and demons and things."

"Is that fun?"

Connor paused and cocked his head to the side in contemplation. "I guess. He kills everything that tries to touch me."

* * *

"You need to teach your son some manners."

Angel's head snapped up from an outdated issue of Cosmo. He looked at the strict old woman with an expression of surprise, which quickly turned into a look of indignance.

"Why do you say that?" he asked.

"He puts his feet on the table. There's nothing worse than a boy who puts his feet on the table."

Angel raised an eyebrow. "I'd say there's a lot of things worse than a boy who puts his feet on the table."

"It is not polite." She motioned with a sandpaper hand to the dirt Connor's shoes had left on the table, the streaks of filth which had resulted from how he carelessly dragged them off. "Other people use this table."

"Well, I apologize," said Angel, a sour tinge to his tone. "I'll try to prevent it in the future."

Connor came out then, a sulky look pasted on his face as he approached his father.

"Can we go now?"

"Hey, pal," Angel smiled, ignoring his son's demand. "How was your appointment?"

"It sucked," Connor replied, tapping his foot impatiently. "Let's go."

Angel shifted uncomfortably, feeling just a bit too aware of how the old woman's smug look was trained right on him.

"Okay." He stood up and slung an arm over his son's shoulder, which was shrugged off after a moment. "Anything you want to do?"

"I want to go home."

"Oh…okay. What do you want to do at home?"

"Take a shower."

"You just took a shower," Angel reminded him, inhaling the floral scent of his son's clean hair as the two walked towards the car.

"Well, I'm taking another," Connor informed his father, jumping into the passenger seat of the convertible.

"Do you mind if I buy you new shoes first?"

"Yes, I do mind. There's nothing wrong with the ones I'm wearing."

"Connor…they're coming apart. And they're really filthy," Angel pointed out.

"Well, can't we get them another time?"

"I think it would be best if we got them now."

Connor graced his father with a melodramatic sigh and kicked at the dashboard. "Why now? Why not tomorrow?"

"Time is of the essence," Angel replied.

"Dad, we don't do ANYTHING. How can time possibly be of the essence?"

Angel's eyes flickered from the road to his now dirty dashboard and he panicked for a moment, a stream of clarity blinding him, sinking him, drowning him – he was a wreck as a champion and a failure as a father. Connor wore dirty shoes and a sad face, and everywhere he walked, he left it apparent until someone came around to clean his tracks.

"Feet off the dashboard."

"What?"

"Now."

Connor slowly returned his feet to the floor of the car and turned untrusting eyes to the vampire.

"Why?" he asked softly, as his father parked the car.

"Your shoes are dirty and I love my car."

Connor stilled, his mind absorbing the words like his back would absorb a blade. Angel took note of the change in expression and touched his son's shoulder.

"That's why you get new shoes."

"Oh." Connor looked out the window. "Can I have that book I wanted?"

"Have you finished _Dubliners_?"

"No. _Dubliners_ is boring."

"Well, _American Psycho_ is nauseating. I don't want you reading it until you're forty. And _Dubliners_ isn't boring. It's a classic."

"Just because you're Irish-"

"_Dubliners_ is infamously anti-Irish, so don't even try using that against me."

"Just because you hate Ireland-"

"Can't use that one, either. I gave you an Irish name."

Connor sighed as his father parked the car in the mall parking lot. "How long is this going to take?"

"No more than 30 minutes."

"Can we go home after that?"

"I was thinking we could go out for dinner."

"I don't want to go out for dinner."

"Too bad."

Connor groaned. "Dad, I really just want to be alone for a little while."

Angel decided it was best to go temporarily deaf at that moment. Connor was small and sad and pale and Angel needed to do more with his son - somethingother than fight and sleep and cry.


End file.
